Tips to Extend Flower Vase Life

Flower food- does it really work?

Hooray! You just received a brand new bouquet, but how do you maximize the beauty currently before you?

Fill a clean vase with cool water and give each stem a fresh cut on a diagonal. The angled cut will increase the surface area and allow the stem to take up more water. Clean the leaves from the bottom of the stems to ensure that no leaves are touching the water. The wet leaves will dirty the water faster creating bacteria that will cause the flowers to decompose. Switch out the water daily and cut the stems whenever you switch the water. That’s all!

But what about the flower food? Those little packets usually include sugar, some citric acid, and a little bit of bleach. In theory, the bleach and citric acid will kill off any bacteria in the water and the sugar will give an extra boost of nutrients to your blooms.

However, many florists do not use flower food. Often there is no noticeable difference between using the flower food and simply using cool, clean water and a clean vase. In fact, sometimes the flower food can kill your blooms faster. The packets contain too much powder for the average vase size, so a whole packet in a vase will have too much bleach.

Sometimes the flower food will make your blooms open faster. This can make the vase life shorter since it is speeding up the life cycle of the bloom. I will use flower food for my roses, because I like the look of a soft, open rose more than a tight bud and flower food will help to achieve that look.